in another world
by IAmImperfect
Summary: It wasn't hard to figure out what had gone on, even if he didn't quite believe that it was possible. He was dating Jade West. He had been dating Jade West ever since Freshman Year. It wasn't possible. But it was what had happened. It was dream, that affected the rest of his life. It was like a gift that he didn't deserve. He didn't know if it was real, but honestly, he didn't care.


**A fic for The Topaz Awards August Contest, the randomiser. Be warned, I don't normally write Jandré, so this could be so very awful.**

Prompt: in another world**  
**

Quote: "Yes, but you, unlike me, are a git."

Summary: It wasn't hard to figure out what had gone on, even if he didn't quite believe that it was possible. He was dating Jade West. He had been dating Jade West ever since Freshman Year. It wasn't possible. But it was what had happened. It was dream, that affected the rest of his life. It was like a gift that he didn't deserve. He didn't know if it was real, but honestly, he didn't care.

* * *

in another world

André's eyes were fixed on Beck that day. It wasn't as if there was anything weird about that. All of their eyes were focused on Beck, but André's eyes especially were. His insides were screaming at him, giving him two different messages. Half of him was begging that Beck wouldn't open that door, hope reaching up through him in a way that it had never done before. Maybe they would break up, and André would be able to… well, André wasn't sure what he would be able to do, but André wouldn't have to watch Beck kiss Jade every day.

He had let his heart out through the song, and that had helped so much, but even after, when André wrote, there was still her face in his mind, and her voice singing.

And all of this was the reason why the other half of him was screaming for Beck to open the door. André had resigned himself by now to knowing that he would never be with Jade. There was no reason that Beck needed to break her heart. André _hurt _when he thought about Jade getting hurt.

But in the end, it didn't matter what he thought. Beck hesitated to open that door, and in André's mind, he realised that Beck was the biggest idiot he had ever met. Beck was the biggest idiot because he had the most amazing girl in the world, and he let Jade slip right through his fingers. Beck made Jade break, and Beck made Jade feel pain. This was a girl who would strong and confident, who never let anything get to her.

In that moment, André wanted to scream with pain, and cry along by her side. He wanted to kill Beck instantly. André wanted to create a fight over her honour. But instead, he sat down, he was calm, and he poured all of his energy into destroying Beck at poker.

It wasn't much of a surprise that she invaded his dreams that night. Normally his dreams were amazing, music and rhythm and colour, and just… just amazing. They were pure epic-ness. But tonight's dream was weird.

It was weirder than purple chicken and a blue French horn.

Long story.

* * *

He was back in freshman year. Everybody was yelling insults. And when André said everybody, André meant Jade and Beck. They were at each-other's throats, looking like they were about to kill somebody. The insults were meaningless to his ears, although they were creative, as André could expect from Jade.

He heard a couple of lines, something about Jade not being ready for Hollywood Arts, and about her being a Goth and Jade's quick smart-arse reply.

"Yes, but unlike me, you are a dick."

But the scene as a whole rang bells to him.

Jade reached out, and picked up a cup full to the brim with Starbucks coffee. And then Beck was soaked, soaked right down to his skin and covered in coffee. André recognised the situation right then. As unlikely as it was, this was the moment when Jade and Beck had gotten together. He didn't know why his subconscious had decided to show him this, but he had a feeling it had something to do with torturing him completely. This was a moment when Jade was still there in front of him, completely unattached. This was a moment where André wanted to go over there and kiss her. He wanted to sweep back her hair, the brunette-ness of it making him nostalgic, and to kiss her and make her love him.

But that wasn't possible. After all, her relationship with Beck had been good for her. When Beck came over to André to talk about Jade and eventually get around to asking him about Jade, André would have to give him the same answer that André had given him the very first time. He had to tell Beck to go for it.

He repeated it over and over again, almost like a mantra.

Beck sat down, kind of lost in his thoughts. He knew what Beck was thinking, and André felt horrible for wishing that Beck didn't care about Jade. Beck was love-struck to the extreme and André wished that he wasn't. Beck was sitting there, almost emotionless, barely showing anything through his fierce level of calm that _he just had to maintain at all times. _There were a million things that being with Jade had done for Beck, but none of them seemed to matter to André right then.

All he could think about was the pain he had seen in Jade's eyes and in Beck's eyes when Beck had failed to open that door. André could stop it if he wanted to. He felt his resolve to keep Beck and Jade together slowly start to weaken.

And then it snapped altogether. This was just a dream. He wasn't held to the same rules as real life. He could do whatever he wanted. And what he wanted to do was this.

And then Beck asked the question that André had been dreading. "Do you think she likes me?" Beck's voice was nervous in a way that André hadn't heard for years. He was nervous in a way that only existed back when he didn't know that Jade was head over heels for him. He was nervous in a way that made it obvious that he didn't know Jade would always come if he called, despite it all.

André's tone was harsh in a way that was so unlike him.

"No. It's obvious she hates you." It was a lie. It was such an unbelievable lie that André was amazed Beck didn't see through it. But apparently he didn't because André watched Beck's face fall. Beck looked completely crestfallen, and André couldn't help but compare it to the happiness that had made its way onto Beck's face the first time that all of this had happened.

It made André feel horribly guilty, but then he thought about Jade standing outside that door, her heart breaking, and everything suddenly became easier to deal with. And instead, André stood up, with confidence that he would never have had in freshman year and walked over to Jade.

"Look, I'm sorry Beck's being an asshole." It was true. Beck was a really nice guy, he was. But at this stage in life, he was a little bit of an asshole. He especially was around Jade. This was supposed to have been the moment where all that changed, but André guessed it definitely wasn't going to be that anymore.

"Why doesn't he just come over and say it himself." Jade's thoughts were still entirely focused on Beck. But why shouldn't they? After all, this was supposed to be the moment that they got together if it wasn't for André messing things up.

"Because he's an asshole."

Despite herself Jade laughed, and André smiled, sensing an innocence in her laugh that she didn't have in the world he lived in awake. "But I'm not. And there's no better way to stick it to an asshole than to go out with a guy that might actually deserve you." This was the all-important moment. André knew that Jade didn't like him, she was in love with Beck, but inwardly this would answer the question of if he'd ever have had a chance.

He knew that was stupid. This was all inside his head. None of this was real, no matter how vivid it was. But when he held out his hand and Jade took it, he felt like he could fly. And then he walked off with her, hoping there was a sunset somewhere nearby.

* * *

The next day however, André awoke with a massive groan. He would have to deal with the effects of Jade and Beck's break-up and that was something he definitely didn't want to have to deal with. He didn't want to deal with Beck's indifferent look and his shrug that simply said that he didn't care. He didn't want to deal with Jade cutting up garbage cans and being miserable and screaming at everything. He couldn't cope with all of Jade's emotion at once while Beck hid all of his away and made her suffer even more.

The grim feeling didn't pass even once he was in school. He managed to avoid the two of them on his way into school, but Beck's locker was virtually next to André's. There had been no way that he was going to avoid him so it wasn't really much of a surprise to walk in and see Beck opening up his locker.

He played his chords quickly, but the locker didn't spring open. He tried once more, but all it didn't was cause people to look at him strangely. Given that his was pretty musical, it was fairly obvious when he had forgotten how to open it, so he tried not to do it often.

Beck looked over to him, not even sparing a single glance to look at André. And then André noticed something. Beck's locker wasn't transparent anymore. It was built like a safe, with one hole in it, covered loosely by an opaque picture of Tori. Beck snorted slightly when he saw André staring at his locker like he had never seen one before in his life.

André slowly raised his eyes to Beck's.

"You okay?" He kept his tone calm; trying to appreciate that Beck would be suffering from the break-up too.

Beck didn't even bother to look up at André, as if it wasn't possible that André could be talking to him.

"Beck? Beck? Okay, I know you've got to be stressing out. But look at me, man." André was beginning to get stressed. "Look at me!" Beck finally glanced up at André, but all André could see was dislike in Beck's eyes. "What's wrong?" André asked quietly. "What'd I do?"

Beck stayed emotionless, his eyes drifting vaguely to behind André. André himself simply felt a tap on his back, and turned around to Jade, a mix between a smile and a grimace on her face. Once she noticed Beck though, all he could see was hatred.

The only thing was the hatred in Jade's eyes wasn't quite reflected in Beck. Jade felt so strongly about him, and André could tell it was still like it had been in freshman year, when they said it was hatred, but really, it was so much more. But this time Beck didn't feel it. The look in Beck's eyes was indifference, but not all that much more. It was almost like Beck wasn't feeling much at all anymore. But despite the way she had glanced at Beck, André felt Jade's eyes on him, looking at him the way that he never thought she would.

Beck looked once more at Jade, and then walked straight past, not even looking at André or Jade, but keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. It was as if he had managed to completely get over Jade in one day.

André looked back at Jade. What on Earth was going on?

And then things got weirder. Jade leaned in a smug little smile on her face of somebody who knew that she was fighting a battle, and winning. And she leaned right in, until her lips were so close, and then they did.

Kiss, that was. And André stood there, with only one thought going through his mind.

_Oh my God I'm kissing Jade West._

And that was how most of that year went. It wasn't hard to figure out what had gone on, even if he didn't quite believe that it was possible. He was dating Jade West. He had been dating Jade West ever since Freshman Year, when he randomly came up to her and told her that Beck was an asshole. It wasn't possible. But it was what had happened.

André had what he had wanted. He was dating Jade West, and it was an unbelievable feeling. She would never have to feel the heartbreak that she had felt the day her and Beck were over. Because André knew that he was never going to leave Jade. But everything was different now. It had all changed.

The first day he tried to sit next to Tori at the lunch table, all he got was some very awkward looks until Beck sat down at a different table, and Tori moved to join him, sucking Beck's face as she came back down. André would have had to be blind to not notice Jade twitch just ever so slightly. It was just him and Jade now. Tori was dating Beck, Cat was friends with Tori, and Robbie was in love with Cat (Some things never change). It was just him and Jade.

And even Jade herself was different. They would sit in the cafeteria, in the corner, and every now and then, she would point something out. She would point out this prank that she had done that was just _so fucking hilarious_. She had been mean before, but she was verging on evil at points. The worst point was her sixteenth birthday. She had decided that she needed to let loose and go nuts, and what she had decided that meant was setting Sinjiin's hair on fire. It crawled down his curls to his scalp, almost leaving burn marks on his face.

Jade _laughed._

André guessed that it must have been Beck that changed her. Because Beck was different too. Beck never seemed to feel anything, was stiff, and calm to the point where André seriously thought that one day he would just accidentally fall asleep.

And he went through an entire year of it all. He was slowly realising that he didn't love this Jade as much as the one he had left behind. He was being selfish, living in this world, he truly was. Because despite it all, Jade wasn't as happy as in the world André had left behind. Jade was cruel and bitter, and vindictive in a way he didn't like. André wasn't enough to make her a better person in the way that the rest of them had been. And that began to tear him apart inside. It was just a little at first, and then it got more and more and more.

And then they were sitting in the car. It was the night of the Prome once more, but they weren't going. Jade had no reason to crash the Prome. She wasn't angry at Tori, she and Tori had nothing to do with each other. She hadn't been last year. Last year had been a total success. And why would they go to Prome? To dance with their friends? Jade wouldn't be caught dead there. So they were just sitting in the car, driving to somewhere that André couldn't even remember. It didn't matter.

All he could think about was how much he wanted everything to be the way they had been. He wanted to be at the Prome having fun. He wanted his friends back. Jade was amazing, but she wasn't an immediate substitute for everything that he had been through since he joined Hollywood Arts.

The only other thing on his mind was how beautiful Jade looked tonight. She wasn't dressed particularly special, she was simply in her jeans and combat boots. But she was still the most beautiful girl in the entire world to him. Jade lifted her eyes from her phone slightly, smiling when she caught his gaze on her. She was amazing.

"Jade…" He whispered. He felt like he was being ripped apart at the seams. There was that half that knew they had been locked in their own little bubble for far too long, and they needed to break out of it. And then there was that half that wanted to stay with Jade forever, and didn't care about anything else in the entire world. "I've got something I need to tell you." He had to tell her. He just had to. He was being a coward. He needed to rip the Band-Aid off and get it done with. He needed to dump Jade so she could live her life. So she could go back to being the Jade he fell in love with. He finally understood how Beck had felt.

But he was a coward. "What do you think would have happened in another life?"

She looked at him with confusion fluttering in her eyes, trying to decide whether she was being teased. She drew herself closer to him. "What do you mean?"

"Say something changed. Something went differently. Where would we be?"

"That's ridiculous." Jade snorted, and almost turned back to her phone, before noticing the seriousness in André's eyes. "But I think we would be here. I think we would be right here. I would love you in a million different dimensions. I'd love you even in another world." There was an unspoken question in her words. Would you love me too? Whatever happened, would you love me?

André knew then that he would. After all, he had.

André smiled, despite the fact that what she was saying was hadn't loved him in the other world, but the way she said it, made it all worthwhile. It made him grateful that he had made the decision which had completely turned his life around. He was grateful that he had made the weirdest decision ever, which had given him Jade. He leaned in closely, and whispered three words in her ears.

"I love you."

And then he kissed her.

And then they crashed.

* * *

And it was all black. He didn't know what had happened. Jade could be alive. Or she could be lying at a broken angle on the floor in her own blood. He could feel the pain seeping into him. He could feel his own limbs and their failure to move. It was agonising. But he didn't think about himself in that moment. He thought about Jade, and how being with André hurt her so much more than being with Beck had.

And all he wanted was to be with her. But, despite himself, he knew exactly what was coming now. He didn't know why, but it didn't surprise him when a very familiar scene opened up right in front of him.

It almost made him cry, although he kept it in. He had been given a glimpse of what he could have had, and now he had to change everything back to the way it was supposed to be. And this was what Jade needed. This was what Beck needed. This was what André needed to do. And he absolutely hated that.

"Do you think she likes me?" Beck asked a nervous tone in his voice.

André knew what his line was, and this time he said it. "Are you kidding me? Why don't you just ask her out and stop all your pointless flirting." His voice had no enthusiasm, but Beck was too caught up in Jade to care. He got up instantly, and André had to see the scene play out once more. Jade smiled with the attention, and on the fifth try, gave in.

André sat there. He knew this was for the best. He still didn't know what this had been. He would probably wake up tomorrow and decide that this whole thing was a dream.

But then once more, he heard Jade's voice in his head.

"I would love you in a million different dimensions. _I'd love you even in another world."_

And he had faith once more. He loved Jade, he knew that. And if Jade had loved him once, maybe it would happen again.

Maybe it would just take a little longer.

* * *

And then the world faded once more. But this time, it was to a bright white light.

And then another female voice, but this time, it wasn't Jade. "He may be experiencing mild amnesia for a little while. It happens occasionally, if something traumatic has happened to André within a relatively short time."

André blinked, trying to understand both where he was, and what the woman was saying. It was difficult, mostly because of the large amount of bright flashing lights shining right into his eyes.

"Furthermore, it has not been uncommon for patients to develop hallucinations to fill this gap in time, when they severely regret their actions and invent this ideal world for them to live in while they are in the coma."

Coma was the only word that André actually registered. Was that where he had been? Was that whole year a hallucination? It couldn't be, could it? But it was the only explanation that made sense to him. But then, if it was all a hallucination, then the whole of the last year didn't exist. He had never dated Jade. It felt unbelievably sad to think that it was all over, although he knew that he had made that decision.

Voices drifted into his ear once more.

"Is he okay?" Through his groggy disorientated state, he managed to identify Tori's voice, as concerned as ever.

"He's still André?" It was a male voice that asked the next question. But it was far too low to be Robbie's. Beck's? It was weird hearing Beck's voice again after a year of not talking to them.

There was a small silence between his friends as what he could only assume was his doctor replied. "He's fine. But I recommend small groups of visitors to begin with. I can't let all five of you in at once. He's only just started to stir, and I think he's only just awaking."

And then there was the voice that he knew all so well. Jade spoke quietly and carefully. "Do you mind if I see him first, all things considered?"

_Okay, what the Hell did that mean?_

The others agreed immediately, to André's surprise. All what considered? They weren't dating, were they? He had figured that out already. He struggled to move and prop himself up, if only so he could see people. His hands managed to grasp a remote, and hitting a button and praying it was the right one, he was suddenly sitting upright, and there was Jade.

And then all the memories came back. The memories of Jade and Beck, and how upset Jade had been originally. He remembered how she had hurt. And had to slowly recover. And how she had to do this all by herself. André remembered how he had just stood there. He had been too scared to say anything, to even comfort her in her sorrow. He definitely hadn't been confident enough to tell her how he felt.

What had the doctor said? _"When they severely regret their actions and invent this ideal world for them to live in while they are in the coma." _Because all he could feel right now was regret.

And then he remembered her and Beck getting back together. From the moment Beck kissed her, and she was suddenly swept off her feet, André knew it was going to go wrong. He just knew. And yet, he couldn't stop himself. André had sat there and let Jade pour out her heart to Beck.

And then he sat back and watched her heart fall apart once again. André just couldn't get it into his head that Beck and Jade weren't going to work out. And Beck and Jade didn't seem to be able to figure that out either.

And the crash… oh God. Jade had been there. Despite it all, Jade had been in the crash. He remembered it all so clearly.

Jade could barely talk through her tears as she stared down at her phone. It had been stupid in hindsight for Beck to give her a lift to a party if she was going to dump him there. It was almost ironic the way that André had been about to say something. André had been about to ask her out, his gaze absolutely caught on Jade West.

And then they crashed. The one resolution he needed to make was that he wasn't allowed to look at Jade while driving.

Him and Jade just stared at each other, not really knowing what to say, until she spoke softly.

"You're awake."

André tried his hardest to reply, but it was all he could do to even get his head t0 move in a simple nod. "I'm so sorry," Jade continued and André was less shocked that he would have been before. He had dated Jade for year (even if it had all been a hallucination), he had seen her apologise, but it was rare. "It was my fault we crashed."

André shook his head furiously. Or at least, he tried to. It came out as a vague shake, looking more like he was trying to get rid of flees hiding in his head, rather than conveying disagreement. He managed to croak out a couple of sentences.

"No. It was not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. You were hurt. And it was me that allowed you to be hurt. And then it was me that caused you to be hurt even more. It was never your fault."

Jade looked at him in pure shock.

"I never want to hurt you again." The last sentence was barely understandable, and it used up all the strength he had. Suddenly André felt tired, exhausted, and just wanted to collapse, but as his eyes slowly started to shut, he felt Jade's lips kiss him lightly on the forehead.

His hallucination had managed to accomplish two things. First of all, it had given him the guts to tell Jade how he felt, and secondly, it had given him the hope that she would love him in this world as well.

And he shut his eyes, he could almost hear her voice one more time.

_"I'd love you even in another world."_

* * *

**I hope that this was decent, although I'm not certain if it was. At the very least, I hope you enjoyed it, and leave me a review to let me know what I did well and what I need to improve on.**

**Thanks :P**

**_Forever Failing Better_  
**

**PerfectingImperfections**


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